“Mr. Keynes is no Fascist!” Hilda snapped. “He was making a perfectly fair point, and his studies indicate that it will hardly improve our own economy to keep fleecing Germany.”
“And continuing to kick someone when they’re down is never a good idea,” Maisie chimed in.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ellis mused. “It does at least keep them down.”
“Only until they get up again, at which point they want more revenge,” Maisie said, remembering all her plans to destroy the Toronto gang kids. And Georgina, too.
I bet all those kids ended up dead anyway. Or in prison. Here’s hoping.
“I’ve no doubt that Siemens, being German, wishes to see Germany rich and powerful again,” Ellis conceded. “Patriotism costs nothing. But these are still businessmen, and they want to do business in England and wherever else they can. They won’t be so patriotic as to interfere with business. And any number of corporations despise unions and want to see them excoriated in the newspapers. So if they wish to publish their own paper to do as much, they can, but they can’t force anyone to read it.”
“What if they buy up all the other papers?” Hilda asked.
“Oh nonsense, that would never be allowed,” Ellis scoffed. “We’ve laws against that sort of thing, and it’s just not the British way besides.”
“It happened in Italy,” Hilda reminded him.
“Not exactly a journalistic paragon prior to Mussolini, was it, though?”
“See here, my dear God,” Hilda said, tapping the German papers. “This is very good propaganda, well considered and awfully compelling. Didn’t Mussolini prove how useful that could be?”
“Certainly, but the idea that a few wealthy men would take such ludicrous steps all to maximize their profits is the stuff of high melodrama. Tell me, Miss Musgrave, do any of them twirl their mustaches?”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, will you please help?” Hilda snapped.
“Seems to me what you need is a good investigative journalist, not me.” He turned to Maisie, pointing at her with his cheroot. “Which are you more interested in becoming, Miss Musgrave? Journalist or spy?”
“Truth seeker,” said Maisie.
Ellis fell about laughing and Hilda beamed like a proud favorite aunt.
“And truth teller,” Maisie added. Just so everything was clear.
“I suppose in the best of worlds, journalists and spies do both those things,” Hilda said. “That might make an awfully good Talk, now I think of it. But really, Ellis, will you help?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised. “But I still think it’s an enormous waste of your enormous brains.”
“Ah well, it wouldn’t be the first time,” Hilda said.
Hilda and Maisie left soon after.
“I don’t feel like going straight home. Fancy a stroll?” Hilda asked.
They got out of the cab near Piccadilly and walked through the crowds of people leaving the theaters and streaming toward restaurants and nightclubs. It was strange, being in the midst of so much finery and happy chatter and thinking of attempts to clamp down on most of it. Strange, too, having a deeply private conversation in such a place, but no one could hear them.
“Miss Matheson, how did you know about Siemens and Nestlé, specifically? Did you know Hoppel and Grigson were friends?”
“I have a number of friends in a number of places and they know I like information that might look esoteric. So they send me things. And then other people tell me other things, and I ask questions. But you’re the one who’s really done the, if I may, lion’s share of the work here. I would never have had the time. I’m most grateful.”
“But it’s not just via friends, is it?” Maisie pursued. “You got some of that information through more official channels?”
“Ah. You’re asking about a certain organization, of which very few people know the membership?” Hilda grinned and blew a smoke ring. “It’s possible that a person whom you know has had something or other to do with said organization. As it happened, that person became known to T. E. Lawrence, just before the war—”
“Lawrence of Arabia?” Maisie gasped.
“He prefers to be called ‘Ned,’ actually,” Hilda said, then grinned fondly. “Unless it’s a formal occasion. Well, so, he was looking for a person who spoke Italian and German and was good with organization and whatnot to help set up an office for that said organization in Rome during the war, and so it went.”
“And . . . are you still . . . ?”
Hilda shook her head. “I’m telling you what I’m telling you because you’ve more than earned my trust, but understand I’ve not really told you anything. I only want to show you I trust you, because you are playing quite a dangerous game, and I’m afraid I’ve led you into it. You should at least be assured you are playing for the right side. Now, then, I think the next step is to hook in one of my journalist friends, someone to do a bit of snooping, get some real dirt to stick. Someone who doesn’t mind something a touch illegal, so long as the real crime is exposed.”
“How illegal?”